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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22535986">The Dangers of Time</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/StripedScribe/pseuds/StripedScribe'>StripedScribe</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Captain America (Movies)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Timelines, Death, Naive Steve Rogers, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Time Travel</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-02-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-28 13:15:24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,399</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22535986</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/StripedScribe/pseuds/StripedScribe</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>It worked, he went home, or to what he called home. A future, in the past, but he never thought of the consequences. Of what a man out of time could bring with him, the dangers of time travel.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>10</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The Dangers of Time</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Found this in my drafts, a quick drabble originally posted to Tumblr but edited to actually make a bit more sense....</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It was the future he could have never had, a perfect life, a perfect family. Time Travel, returning the stones, with the last stop his home, his time, and Peggy. His love.</p>
<p>Now he knew the war would end, that they would win, he fought harder. Knowing that there was an end to it all, a point where he could give up the shield, where he’d no longer be needed to fight someone else’s battles. He’d joined for the war, they’d let him leave when it ended, surely, he was Captain America.</p>
<p>And yet he was still utterly out of time. Out of place. In the future, he’d become too used to the ease of everything, the technology. When he looked at Howard now he always had to stop himself from saying Tony, and constantly noticed how similar, and yet how different they were. The tech, even as Howard strove to improved it, was years behind what his son would develop.</p>
<p>The end of the war would be soon, only a few months now. Then retirement, although Peggy wanted to carry on, to fight new, and different battles. It wasn’t Steve’s plan, they were supposed to have peace now, to be able to have a family.</p>
<p>But Bucky was being tortured, turned into a Hydra weapon. Steve was selfish, but knew that Bucky was safe, he’d left him in the future, alive and smiling. And without the protection of being an Avenger, or even of being Captain America, he couldn’t go on one man missions to break him out. He simply listened to the news, waiting, wincing as they spoke of a ghost assassin. <em><br/></em><em><br/></em>The war ended, and Peggy carried on with her missions. Creating SHIELD, and Steve remembered the warnings, of not altering time. What would have happened if he’d stopped her? If SHIELD never existed, he may have never been rescued in the future, could have never been able to get back. It would be fine, he wasn’t sure how this worked, but he’d fixed the stones, that was all that was dangerous for now.</p>
<p>Peggy fell in love. Not with him, but he’d seen it coming. They’d had their promised dance, but love never settled for them. They remained close friends, even after she moved away. He ended up working for her, living in barracks and being sent on missions, where they needed strength, or a Captain, or a figure. Paraded around the country for celebrations of the war.</p>
<p>He was alone again. His dream and his desire, lost. Foolish wishes. Full of regret, he wished he’d never left, abandoned his family. They had potential, even if they clashed sometimes, but they could have crafted something better, something to protect the world.</p>
<p>But that was gone, who would believe him now, that he came from the future. Not Stark, not Pym, not anyone who could really help.</p>
<p>He’d tried.</p>
<p>They marked him crazy, pushed him to retire from the Army.</p>
<p>‘Too many missions, too much stress. Shell shock.’</p>
<p>So he left, handed in the shield. Left it to whatever poor sap would end up with that role next. There would always be more soldiers. Moved back to Brooklyn, used his wage to get a tiny apartment. Drew, painted, tried to sell what he created. He couldn’t work, what skills did he have? A sickly childhood, made super by the army, then fought in the war. Employees wouldn’t have him, rumours spread on his forced retirement. People whispered about him, so he travelled, and those rumours followed him. A super soldier, a stolen car, and a stray cat he’d adopted and called Winter. Using what little money he had to eat, trading art for food or fuel. Soon, as he travelled, people forgot about who he was, and he was just another number, another homeless person.</p>
<p>Just another person trying to help, visiting hospitals and homes to help the sick and mourning, sharing stories and trying to create a better future. But those who were sick would always die, as hospitals filled to the brim, and struggled to cope. Towns, villages and cities, suddenly caught with illnesses and plagues.</p>
<p>He continued travelling, spreading what he thought was hope, stories to those in need of happiness, a helping hand to those still trying to repair. Some people still noticed him, noticed him as Captain America, and would quietly speak with him, pointing to a family in need of help. A roof, leaking since the war ended. A mother needing to get to family. Children, in need of some joy, which came in the form of an overly affectionate cat. Around the country, a trail of death followed him, and spread, a contagion of flu, of sickness. He was blind to it though, marked it to the war, to the climate. That his job of help was even more important as people continued getting ill, that they needed his help even more. He was fine because of the serum, he was just unlucky, to end up in these places as sickness hit.</p>
<p>Howard and Maria Stark had a beautiful son, he wasn’t invited to visit. They wouldn’t want someone like him around them, someone marked as shellshocked. He didn’t think he could bear to look into a newborn Tony’s eyes, to know that he’d seen him die.</p>
<p>Peggy had children a boy and a girl, he travelled back and visited them. “I would have called you godfather Steve, but you travel too much.”</p>
<p>After he left, the whole family was struck with a mysterious illness, ending up in hospital. The babies didn’t make it, too weak and too young. Her husband fought his best fight, but soon perished as well. Peggy clung to life, but was overstruck with grief, becoming a widow and childless within the span of a week.  <em><br/></em><em></em><br/>She blamed Steve. In her grief, and her anger, she needed something to blame. It made sense, in some warped way, how could he still be healthy, when her family had all died around her.</p>
<p>He was tracked down, car stopped, surrounded by men in suits, wearing masks. What choice did he have, but to go quietly? They’d win whatever, and it didn’t seem worth fighting anymore. He opened the door, chasing Winter out, even as she mewled and tried to follow. Ignoring her, he turned to the men, and complied with all their orders.</p>
<p>Yet again, he became a lab rat, and they soon found out the truth. Through hours of tests, vials and vials of blood taken. Meals passed to him from outside a sealed room, everything he used burned.</p>
<p>The serum might be brilliant for stopping illness, but it can’t prevent someone from being a carrier. And Steve had seen so much, been to so many different times and planets in his mission to return the stones, that he’d picked up everything possible.</p>
<p>Post-War America wasn’t set to deal with so many illnesses. There wasn’t the medication, the treatments, it was pure luck as to whether someone survived, or perished. In the future, everyone was vaccinated, or had access to the healthcare needed to fight off illnesses.</p>
<p>And he was apparently a prime incubator for the worst things the world had seen.</p>
<p>They believed him now. Believed that he was from the future, and wanted to do whatever they could to send him back. Else they said, he’d live his life out here. Questioned him, on what the technology was like, how it worked. Warnings of messing with timelines echoed through his mind, as he told the men of their own future, tried to push them in the direction of time travel. As they dug his uniform out of storage, finding his gear from the Time Heist, taking it apart to see how it worked.</p>
<p>Many years later, after living in isolation on a SHIELD base, Steve Rogers was thrown back to the future. For everyone there, no time had passed, and they could only rush over in shock to an obviously changed Steve.</p>
<p>“Destroy it all, time travel, whatever we have left. It’s too dangerous.”</p>
<p>“What happened?”</p>
<p>“I killed them.” He broke down, crying, in shock after so many years alone, to suddenly be back. And that in that timeline, something horrific had happened, something he’d caused, so many deaths.</p>
<p>He’d heal, over time, but the horrors of the past would always stay with him.</p>
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